Bat Swarms: they’re creepy, they’re annoying, and they are very underrated as a unit in Age of Sigmar. Plenty of units like them are overlooked because they appear ineffectual, bland, or have poor stats. Here are the top 5 reasons you should considers Bat Swarms for your next Death army!

1) They are FAST. Like most Soulblight, Bat Swarms are very fast and are able to choose where their battles take place. Zooming Bat Swarms forward to tie up your opponent’s valuable pieces can stymie the strategy of your opponent.

2) Bat Swarms make shooting units cry. Any units within 12″ (not wholly within!) get -1 to their shooting attacks. While shooting armies aren’t as ubiquitous as they were in Age of Sigmar 1.0, against the right army Bat Swarms are going to bum gunline armies out.

3) They’re summonable! That’s right, not only can they pop up from gravesites, but they can be healed by Arkhan the Black, Nagash, Vampire Lords, and all the other necromancers that like to bring “life” back to their dead things.

4) They heal themselves. Even without wizards nearby, if Bat Swarms manage to suck even a drop of blood from the unit they’re fighting, they heal ALL wounds that have been allocated to them! Now they’re hitting on 5s and wounding on 5s, so don’t get your hopes too high; but with a little luck they’ll rebuff the efforts of the units that are desperately trying to kill it.

5) Tough choices. Bat Swarms give your opponent a terrible choice to make: do you waste time fighting an 80 point unit that does little-to-no damage? If you don’t, then Bat Swarms can zoom around and disrupt your shooting and score objectives! If you do manage to kill them in one go, they are a Command Point away from popping right back up!

Currently Bat Swarms from Games Workshop are some of the oldest models without a new sculpt, but there are a plethora of alternative models you can use to including Giant Bats from Games Workshop’s Lord of the Rings line or Reaper’s own Bat Swarm.

Bat Swarms are meant to be annoying, and they fill that role perfectly. Whether you’re trying to build a Soulblight-only army or trying to fine-tune your Legion of Nagash force, don’t overlook these cuties to help give you speed and disruption!